Influenza; A Threatening Respiratory Infection for Armed Forces, Symptoms, Prevention, and Treatment

Global concerns about devastating effects of possible influenza pandemic in the close future are conveniently known. Health organizations are worldwide assigning more money and force for anticipating such events. Antigenic shifts and drift in influenza virus increases the need to annual studies in domains of influenza vaccine and medication. So preventing, controlling and treatment methods are constantly provided by health organizations.
Battlefields have always been challenging for healthcare workers, especially for armed forces. Veterans have to do unpredictable missions abroad during their service which increases the possibility of infection by various types of influenza virus. Influenza infection is one of the most common causes of out-patient treatment and hospitalization in armed forces. According to the high importance of health and the availability of veterans and that influenza is an altering factor for armed forces, identifying diagnosis, treatment, prevention and controlling methods is of high priority.
By using different combinations of keywords such as influenza, armed forces, vaccine, treatment and control on valid scientific databases PubMed, Medline and Scopus, relevant and valid papers were retrieved. Afterwards, the influenza infection’s history in military systems was attempted to get reviewed. Also, preventing and treatment methods for this disease has been provided in health organizations